Weapons
by Random One-Shot
Summary: The Shinigami have duty. The Arrancar have Aizen. The Hollows have hunger. The Vaizard have revenge. But what does it take for a bunch of human children to fight?


_Bleach__ does not belong to me. If it did, I'd probably be a lot richer than I am now. Darn minimum wage…. _

* * *

_Weapons_

_A __Bleach__ Fanfiction _

_By Random One-Shot _

* * *

Uryuu is a Quincy and he has one thousand years of combat heritage to draw from. One thousand years of records and files and strategies and tactics. War stories passed from father to son, and teacher to student.

He has archery practice in the backyard, with a cardboard cutout that has permanent marker fangs and glares. He has his grandfather's voice and hand to steady him, aim him, guide him.

He has a small hand on the bark of a tree and the wonderment of why the Death Gods did not arrive sooner.

He has years of bitterness, of estrangement, of solitude. He knows how to separate himself from his emotions, how to think logically and ruthlessly. He knows how to watch, how to wait for that _one single moment_ when everything is brutally clear and the way to end the fight is as shining as the path of his arrow in flight. He is no powerhouse, like Ichigo or Chad. He is the single swift dart that ends the fight without preamble or drama.

The outsiders wonder why he stays with the other children, the cold boy with flashing eyes. They see the frigid strategist and the lone wolf, the one who hates all Death Gods and all to do with them.

But Uryuu has laid a hand on the bark of a tree and he has seen the lone archer cut down from behind because there was no one to watch his back. He has read the histories of his people as they dwindled from one thousand, to one hundred, to one dozen, to three, to two, and (some day, he knows) to one. He knows that the arrow is only good for the chink in the armor, the one place that a sword cannot reach or a fist cannot widen.

Uryuu stands on the sidelines, watching and waiting until his moment comes. He is the arrow that knows the way to the end.

One shot, one kill.

* * *

Orihime is a girl and sometimes she knows it.

She has had no combat training beyond what Tatsuki gave her. She has never gotten into fights, like Chad. She has never had to help her father splint someone's leg or save someone's life, like Ichigo. She cannot see their enemies as simply obstacles, like Uryuu. Orihime is a girl, a very _human_ girl, and she knows this.

She hates combat, _loathes_ it. There have been days when, while waiting in the dojo for Tatsuki to finish her spars, Orihime has seen her best friend's face wild and feral and ecstatic with the rush of fighting and Orihime is (but just for a moment) afraid of Tatsuki because _she doesn't understand her_. What is there to love about blood and pain?

Orihime hates to see suffering and so she heals. The Shun Shun Rikka is her power and she uses it to undo the events that cannot, should not, and would not be. Lacerations, broken bones, concussions, bruises, hemorrhaging, burns, frostbite, cuts from flower petals, impacts from buildings, and dismemberment by blade. Under her spell, these things fade away to nothingness and her friends rise up again, whole and in one piece.

She does not understand why they do this. She does not understand how they can be so brave and fearless when she has just finished piling their guts back into them or realigning a bone in them or growing new skin on them. She doesn't understand how they can treat their own mortality so lightly, when she has seen the truth of it in Sora's face when she found him on the gurney.

Orihime is just a girl and she does not understand.

She isn't really sure she wants to.

But she understands herself well enough. She knows that she loves her friends, even if she doesn't understand them. She knows that she never wants to see them hurt or dead. She knows that the best chance for that is to have someone who can heal them quickly to follow them no matter what. She knows that she will never leave them as long as they need her.

Orihime is the fire. She has no particular use for war herself, but through her the weapons are forged anew, again and again.

* * *

Chad is not a hero.

He has known this for a long time, maybe all his life. Maybe it was the real reason he picked on those kids in Mexico – if he couldn't have them love him, he'd have them fear him. Abuelo fixed that line of reasoning, but it didn't make Chad any less intimidating. When he takes his walks through Karakura at sunset, commuters going home cross the street to get away from his frightening bulk and scowling face. Women clutch their purses tighter. Small children wait for him to pass by. Chad is a foreign giant in a land of small, very breakable people.

He is terrified of his hands, of the crushing power they have. He knows that he must always, _always_ be careful when in gym class, or playing with his friends, or throwing something to someone. He could very easily hurt them without trying to. He is afraid of himself and being able to fire an atomic blast out of his hand does not make it any better.

Hollows, however, make it more bearable. With the power comes the fight and for the first time in his life, Chad does not have to hold back. Going all out is encouraged, in fact. Crush the Hollows, grind them down and destroy every bit of them. A chance to really _cut loose_ and see just what exactly he can do.

The results, as Aizen finds out, are devastating. A group of Hollows sent to the living world for a distraction, five hundred strong, is gone in an instant. No one else dies.

And when the dust settles, Soul Society finds Chad calmly walking home with smoke still rising from his arm.

Chad is not a hero. He knows this and he is okay with it. He isn't the kind of guy to stand in the spotlight anyway. He knows he would cast the wrong kind of shadow. Ichigo is the hero, the leader, the warrior, and Chad finds that he is content with staying at Ichigo's side. Uryuu's arrows pierce and Ichigo's blade cuts, but sometimes in the thick of things they simply need to stop with the finesse and lay down a serious beating. No speed or grace; just raw, uncompromising brute force.

Chad is a fist - simple, direct and brutal.

* * *

Tatsuki got her first crack at Aizen's forces when a lone Hollow attacked her on her way home from school, four months after summer vacation ended. She survived. Thanks to Ichigo's timely arrival, the Hollow didn't. When Ichigo later arrived at the hospital with some flowers for her, Tatsuki (despite having a broken leg, among numerous other injuries) somehow managed to grab his hair, yank him down to her bed ridden level and hiss, "I'm fucking _sick_ of this shit. Explain. NOW!"

Against his better judgment, he told her and she has followed him ever since.

Tatsuki is small, thin, young and hardheaded.

She is also, as Urahara soon discovers, a _very fucking stubborn_. She does not have Ichigo's insane learning curve, or Orihime's ability to alter reality, or Uryuu's precise calculation, or Chad's unstoppable power, but the girl _endures_. She drags her barely-above-average _reiryoku_ kicking and screaming to the surface again and again until it is second nature. She tastes blood, feels bones break, watches the world spin, and hears Kisuke laughing as he pummels her senseless over and over and _over_. She vomits blood and acid when her stomach is too weak to hold her meals. Then she spits the taste of it out of her mouth, looks him in the eye and says, "I'm ready. Let's go again."

And she learns.

Each defeat is a little less easy for Urahara, a little harder to bring about. Each technique he gifts her with is dissected, analyzed and reconstructed with her mind and body until she knows _every single inch of it_, which is more than Ichigo could ever say. Every move he makes is taken apart in her eyes and countered in six different ways before she moves. Every weakness, every flaw, every crack in his stance and his movements is known by her.

Tatsuki was born in the wrong era and some times she knows this. She lives for the fight. There is nothing more sweet to her than the feeling of victory. Pain only means a new lesson to be learned. Survival is the ultimate prize. Every enemy is a challenge, every struggle a test. The years of karate may have kept it alive, but it is the months of attempted Tatsukicide on Urahara's part that have brought to the surface something that would have slept forever in the dull world of peace.

When she is finally pronounced ready to fight, Tatsuki forever shuts up Ichigo and anyone else who may think she is vulnerable. The ensuing carnage can only be compared to letting a wild pit bull run loose in a yard full of sheep. At the end, she is standing victorious and ready for more, for all the world can throw at her. Tatsuki was born for war, made for war. In one year, she cleans up more Hollows and Arrancar than any whole division of the Soul Society.

Some days Urahara thinks that he was wrong about Kurosaki-kun being a most frightening child.

He does not know how right he is.

Though it took her more time than most to leave the grindstone, her edge is sharper and longer for it. Tatsuki is the executioner's axe - unstoppable, unbreakable and the last thing her enemy ever sees.

* * *

Keigo is a coward.

He knows this, has always known it, and the revelation from Tatsuki that an entire war is being fought under their noses does not make it go away.

But he stays.

He has no power in a fight. When he finally does manage to ignite his _reiryoku_, he is not at all surprised to find himself fading into the background – literally. This suits him just fine. He can leave the bloody work to those who are suited for it. Keigo will stay away from the battlefield when his friends go to war and he will stick to the shadows. He did not expect to find someone already there.

In Omeada, he finds a mentor. Keigo, it seems, is not the only one to fool the world by being the world's fool. From the lieutenant of the second he learns the arts of espionage, assassination, infiltration, interrogation, and disinformation. He learns to pick locks and disarm traps. He learns to track and ambush. He learns how to tell if someone is lying and how to keep someone from knowing if he is lying. He learns how to seduce and pry, steal and cheat, backstab and get away with it. The world of the black ops has a lure and Keigo finds himself being pulled in by it. He stops speaking to his friends. They wonder, but do not pry.

One day, there is a fight. Ichimura Gin. Yasutora Sado. It ends with Chad bleeding on the ground, a hole deathly close to his heart, and a fox fading away to the desert world with a bloody smile on his face.

Keigo hears it from Mizuiro, their den mother. His nails pierce the skin of his palms and he leaves.

The next day, Ichimura Gin is found dead in his bed.

From then on, Keigo pulls out of the shadows. He still uses them, still lives by them, but never again does he forget why he entered them in the first place. Not for power or safety. For the people who he wanted to protect, even while he wanted to run away.

He can never stand beside them in battle. He is not strong enough or brave enough for that. But he can and does guard them in the dark from anyone who tries to get to their backs.

In a necklace of bells and beads that hangs from the neck of a fool, Keigo is the razor wire the trinkets are strung upon. Though even his best friends may not know or appreciate it, he is always ready to cut throats for them.

* * *

Mizuiro is weak.

It wasn't so bad at first, when he was not alone. But now Keigo and Tatsuki have both left him for the call of war and he finds himself waiting, each and every day, for his friends to return. His power is above average for a human, but nothing special. He does not have Keigo's unique ability to disappear from danger or Tatsuki's inhuman pride. He can and does take on any Hollows who stray near his home, but he cannot do any more than that. He is too weak.

But there is more than one kind of strength, and when they return each and every day, aching and tired, it is Mizuiro who keeps the fire warm for them. He sweeps the floor of the Urahara shop, their home away from home, until it gleams. He cooks meals that a gourmet chef would be proud of. He spins tales for inquiring families and friends when their absence is noticed. He helps with homework when it becomes blatantly clear that saving the world from a man bent on godhood interferes with one's education.

When Ichigo is afraid of the trust and responsibility his friends have given him, however unintentionally, it is Mizuiro he confides in.

When Uryuu needs companionship without noise, without complications, without stress, it is Mizuiro he goes to.

When Orihime is crying because she cannot do more, it is Mizuiro who takes her hand and lays it on the shoulder that has no scar because of her.

When Keigo is afraid of becoming just another face in the shadows, something that feels nothing, trusts nothing, loves nothing, it is Mizuiro who gives him a hug and steps within stabbing range without fear.

When Chad is worried about his growing strength, his ever-rising ability to just destroy anything he wants, it is Mizuiro who takes his terrible hands and shoves the guitar into them for a song.

When Tatsuki is returning in the night from her hunting, it is Mizuiro who has the shower running to wash off the black blood from her hands because it is he who understands that she needs the war like none of them do.

Mizuiro is the shield, guarding his friends from a danger that even they may not see coming.

* * *

Ichigo does not know what he is and he isn't sure if he likes it.

He started out to protect his family, then to protect Rukia, then to protect his town, and now he is trying to protect everyone all at once and he isn't sure he can do it. There are days when Zangetsu is as heavy as a tree and his muscles are rubber. There are days when all he wants to do, all he can think about, is crawling away from the battlefield and curling up for a week because _he does not want this anymore_.

And then someone is charging Uryuu, but Uryuu is covering Chad and Chad can't see it, and Tatsuki is too far away and Keigo is cutting down the one near Orihime from behind and he cannot think, but to move and stab.

And then Uryuu is safe, his pale Quincy face not giving any gratitude except for the look in his eyes – _thanks, now move out of my way_ – and Ichigo has a second to know that he has the done the right thing.

Ichigo fights to protect. Who he protects changes on a second, shifting with the tides of the battle, but the idea is the same. Keep the ones you love safe. But now he is stretching himself so thin and there are days when he can feel the strain like a chain around his neck.

He does not understand why they follow him. Can't they see that he isn't sure he can guard them all? Can't they see that one day he might not be fast enough, or strong enough, or smart enough when they need him? Can't they see it?

Ichigo is afraid of what could happen one day, when he isn't fast enough to reach Uryuu, or strong enough to break through to Chad, or smart enough to keep an eye on Orihime. He is afraid when Tatsuki sneaks in at night, smelling of death and Hollow, and he is afraid when Keigo spends a week washing his hands red and raw following Ichimura Gin's (surprising) assassination. He is afraid when Mizuiro is left alone in Urahara's empty shop with no one around while they battle monsters.

He is always afraid.

But he fights.

A sword is only as good as the person using it. The _zanpakutou_ take that saying literally, and Zangetsu has not shattered yet. It is a tool meant for war, with a blade simple, straight and true.

Ichigo is not sure what he is yet, at sixteen years of age. But he knows what he is becoming, what he could be, and he is afraid. He has seen the man was admired by all his peers. He has seen the same unthinking, unquestioning loyalty given to that man that his friends give to him. He has seen that man betray, murder and harm all of the people who loved him because he felt that he could do better than them, that he could become a god with his kind of power.

Ichigo is afraid of seeing his friends die in battle, but he is afraid himself even more.

He is the sword who longs for the sheathe.


End file.
